Murderer Asks For New Lawyer Due To 'Conflict'

December 28, 1985|The Morning Call

Mitchell DiVentura, convicted by two Northampton County juries of the November 5, 1976, murder of his estranged wife, has filed motions in County Court asking that an attorney from outside the county be appointed to represent him.

DiVentura is also seeking to have Judge Richard D. Grifo, who presided over both trials, disqualify himself from any further proceedings involving DiVentura.

DiVentura was convicted of first-degree murder in April 1977 for strangling his estranged wife, Diane (Simonetta) DiVentura, with an electrical cord. The state Supreme Court granted him a new trial in 1982, and in June of that year he was once again convicted of first-degree murder.

In his petition for a new attorney, DiVentura says he can't trust any Northampton County attorneys "in obtaining justiceconcerning his litigation" because the staffs of the county public defender and district attorney's offices are in conflict of interest with him.

DiVentura says he has been represented by four county public defenders since 1983. At his initial trial he was represented by former Public Defender Lawrence J. Fox.

Fox, he says, was found to be ineffective by the state Supreme Court in 1979 and 1982, and three of the four public defenders appointed to his case since then have withdrawn, citing conflicts of interest. The fourth told DiVentura to fire him if he was not satisfied with his representation.

DiVentura says the county district attorney's office is also in conflict with him because former Public Defender Mark Refowich is now a member of the district at- torney's staff.

Therefore, he is asking the court to appoint him new counsel, from outside the county.

In his petition asking for the removal of Grifo, DiVentura continues to maintain that Grifo, because he had a personal relationship with members of the dead woman's family and "spent his childhood living in the same neighborhood as the Simonetta family," should not have presided at his trials. In addition, DiVentura says that Grifo's tipstaff was a personal friend of the Simonettas.

DiVentura also says he had Grifo investigated by the Judicial Inquiry and Review Board of the state Supreme Court and by the FBI's Organized Crime Task Force, on "information (he) received in good faith."

Linda Vizi, an agent in the FBI's Philadelphia office, said that although a complaint was once made against Grifo, the U.S. attorney's office declined to prosecute. She said that after examining the facts, they decided there was no evidence of violations of racketeering and official misconduct statutes.

The case was closed, she said, in 1976.

A spokesman for the state Judicial and Inquiry Review Board said that the board's investigations are, by the state constitution, held strictly confidential, unless and until findings and recommendations are presented to the state Supreme Court.